A Metairie woman pleaded not guilty Monday to killing and dismembering French Quarter exotic dancer Jaren Lockhart. Wearing orange jail clothing while chained to another female inmate, Margaret Sanchez, 30, said only two words during her brief arraignment, "yes," and "OK," in response to the judge's routine questions.

Sitting with other inmates in the jury box at 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna, the petit defendant appeared to weep at times and to communicate with a man in the audience at other times. She's charged with second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Lockhart, 22, worked at Temptations Gentlemen's Club. In exchange for money, she agreed to leave work June 6, 2012, with Sanchez and Sanchez's boyfriend, Terry Speaks, for a private party at the couple's Kenner apartment, authorities say.

She suffered a fatal stab wound in her chest, and her head, arms below the elbows and legs were removed from her torso. Her remains were dumped along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and parts of her body washed up at Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian, police said.

Her tattooed forearms were never recovered. In addition to removing body parts, her killers cut from her body other tattoos that could have helped to identify her. That prompted the obstruction charges, authorities say.

Speaks, 41, also is charged with murder, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He is being held in a federal prison in New York in connection with an unrelated sex-offender charge from North Carolina. Speaks is scheduled to complete that sentence during the first week of October, said Assistant District Attorney Doug Freese, who has been assigned to prosecute the couple in Jefferson Parish with Tommy Block.

His public defender in Jefferson is John Benz. Sanchez also has a public defender, Jessica Mullaly, who entered the not-guilty plea on her client's behalf Monday.

Sanchez is held in the parish jail in Gretna in lieu of a $1.5 million bond. She's scheduled to appear in court again on Oct. 15. Judge Stephen Grefer of the 24th Judicial District Court is presiding over the case.

In addition to the charges tied to Lockhart's death, Speaks also is accused of failing to register as a sex offender. He was charged with a similar offense in North Carolina in early 2012, in connection with his 2003 conviction there for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. Jefferson prosecutors say in court documents that Speaks was required to register as a sex offender but did not do so during the period he lived in Jefferson Parish, believed to be between Jan. 1 and June 12, 2012.

Speaks, whose criminal history includes assault and domestic violence in North Carolina, used three alias: Allen Rice, Leslie Allen Rice and Leslie Rice, according to the indictment against him and Sanchez. He faces a $1.75 million bond in Jefferson Parish.

The Hancock County, Miss., Sheriff's Office initially led the investigation into Lockhart's death, until it turned over the case to the Kenner Police Department earlier this year. Soon after, Kenner detectives arrested Sanchez at her Metairie home and obtained a warrant for Speaks' arrest.

Investigators used French Quarter security cameras and traffic cameras to track Speaks' and Sanchez's whereabouts on the night Lockhart was killed. They left Temptations Gentlemen's Club about 2 a.m. and drove to Kenner, according to police.

The next morning, Speaks dropped off Sanchez at her job at a Chinese restaurant in Metairie. That evening, he picked up Sanchez from work, and that night traffic cameras on Interstate 10 recorded Sanchez's car going into and then leaving Mississippi. It was then, police believe, that the couple discarded Lockhart's body parts, including by dumping them off the Bay St. Louis bridge.

After he was imprisoned in New York, Speaks told two inmates about the crime, authorities say. After he was questioned by police in Lockhart's death, he wrote an email to Sanchez, suggesting she killed Lockhart and he dismembered the body.